the life of rolie

[1968GT]

That is GREAT news Mark, CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Very well done!!!

[Stickman]

There's a great clip to frame for the garage wall

[Glenn]

Believe or not Glen I took Rolie to a show on the weekend as well, it's not something I'd normally do, but it was at my home patch....Goodwood, and it was titled 'Sushi Sunday'...a Japanese car special.
I took some pictures, which I'll put on a new post.
But it turns out it was worth the trip, as we've increased the Bellett profile over here a little more when a weekly classic car paper did a little report.

IMG.jpg

Their dates are wrong, but as you know journos never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Well done Mark. Looks like it created a lot of interest from the media. I am sure for the on-lookers too, who most likely asked what is was !
At least here, some people know them.

glenn

[Pombellett]

We got to Silverstone on a bright, spring morning.

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Signed on and went to scrutineering, where the car started to pour all his water out. The leak, of course, was in the most inaccessible place, and with a really early qualifying, I ran out of time to stem the flow.
Fortunately I had kept the original rad cap which held no pressure, this went on and.....no leak.

Qualified 27th from 39 and finished 18th in the race...mainly due to a lot of attrition. Our pace is reasonable, but the important plus point, before we go to Spa is that the car didn't miss a beat.
I'm editing the in car footage, and I'll post the finished product when it's done, and I'm sure a few snaps of the race will surface in time.

[Pombellett]

Strangely I can't find any photos of the race yet....but I was there, I promise. Here's the in-car footage to prove it.

http://youtu.be/PbtnKo2u7lo

[BULLITT]

hey pom great footage sweet sounding motor ,,,,
keep at it cheers davo...

[Stickman]

You had your serious eyes on in the mirror there Pom

[Pombellett]

Cheers guys. And yes you're right Sticky....I've got to do something about the camera position.
At last some photos of the Silverstone race have surfaced.

http://www.petermcfadyen.co.uk/page/hom ... ne-13-476/

There's a few I like, but at £12 a download they can stay where they are!

All eyes on Spa now. I want to take all my spares and the entire workshop, and although Jim is coming in his Polara as back up, we still can't take the lot. Difficult decisions must be made.

[Nappe1]

Interesting competition you had in Silverstone...
http://www.petermcfadyen.co.uk/page/hom ... ne-13-167/

Mini Marcos would have been a rare bird, but even a Mini Jem in racing trim. Never seen one live. And after couple of 1930's MGs, is it 2nd gen Prince Skyline? the blue one in the background... If it is, it seems to be short bonnet version, so 1500cc or 1600cc sedan. (2000GT would have longer nose, due having six cyl from Gloria. Originally it did not fit, so Prince engineers welded 7 inches of steel after the firewall to get it in. hardly cheap way to make 300 unit GT model from 4 door sedan, but successful. in 1964 it ate all competition except 904 Porsche in Fuji Speedway)

[Pombellett]

You're right Nap, there's always some unusual stuff about if you look hard enough.

We're back from Spa, and I'll post the story in parts. Time is against me.

Loaded everything I could into the back of the poor old Audi and drove off to the tunnel under the Channel.

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Drove through a bit of France and then most of the length of Belgium to virtually the German border, climbing all the time up to the Ardennes. By the time we got there it was actually freezing and snowing hard....this is the start of the European summer! Although the Polara looks just dandy in the snow.

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Bloody hell it was cold.

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This is all the day before practice and qualifying, so we had to sign on and scrutineer that evening. The circuit is run by the Belgians and the event is run by the French...and how do I put this?....they don't get along....more tomorrow............

[Pombellett]

Because of this signing on and scrutineering was complete bedlam. Lots of arm waving, Gallic shrugs and pointless running around.
But at least we had a garage.

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Overlooking Eau Rouge.

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We also discovered that our grid of up to 2L engined cars had been lumped together with the over 2L grid....So Simon and myself's first drive around Spa was to be with 400HP Capris and BMWs.

Our first practice was Friday morning, and the threat from the fast boys wasn't so bad, Spa being so long, and we found it easy to get out of their way.

[Pombellett]

The weather was a bit better as well.

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Even in a forty minute practice, a three and a half minute lap doesn't give you many chances to really learn the track, but at the end of it we were pretty pleased with laps down to 3.35.

And more or less dry.

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Although when I handed the car over to Simon I was beginning to experience fairly significant knock off in the pads...which got worse.

[Stickman]

Awesome photos PomB

[Pombellett]

Cheers Sticky...I've finally managed to scan the programme....here's Rolie's page.

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And the other thing I've finally had a look at is the in-car footage......as in the past, in all the excitement, I failed to turn the thing on, and only remembered as we were being sorted for the grid. Because of the straps I couldn't really reach the camera to turn it on, so I hit a load of buttons and hoped.....well, I've not got any moving pictures dammit, but somehow I set it to take a still every couple of seconds or so...........I now have something like 2000 pics to look through.......

Anyway here's few of the first (?) Bellett to race Spa...the famous bits.

The 'Bus Stop' chicane.

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Looking down through 'Eau Rouge'

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Looking back up 'Eau Rouge'

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And, yes, to borrow a phrase from Dave, Eau Rouge IS awesome. I simply can't imagine what the FI cars look like through there.

[Pombellett]

Dick and his charming wife made a celebrity guest appearance for our race....good to see you Dick, and thanks for the info about the rack. He got a couple of good pictures, the first one is of us lining up for the start.

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And the second one is when a duck decided to trot her family across the circuit during the race, causing high anxiety to all those watching...but don't worry, nature lovers, they all made it.

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I had a decent start, and enjoyed fending off the close attentions of a couple of DSs.

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After a few laps the car started smoking alarmingly, and we lost a certain amount of time when I backed off and limped back to the pit.

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Oil pressure was good and water temp OK, and we couldn't make it smoke in the pitlane, so we opted to carry on...on later examination back in the UK, it turned out that the oil filler plug had dropped out....schoolboy error, and it won't happen again.

[Early GT]

Mark,
Those last 2 photos are a pair of gems. Your car is sitting pretty flat around that corner
Thanks for sharing
Cheers, Lewis

[Pombellett]

Cheers Lewis, one of the things we are pleased with is the handling.

We battled on, and the smoking got less and less....fortunately, as you know the filler is fairly high on a Bellett box, and although it started to tighten and make some funny noises, it hung on in there.

Meanwhile the brakes were trying to shake the car to pieces, and it was necessary to 'prep' them before each corner, but they also hung on in there....and how about this for a shot?......

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[Stickman]

WOW that's an awesome shot!

My new laptop wallpaper

[oz_toffa]

question is did the diff survive intact after loosing its fill plug?
sure looked like you lost quite a bit of oil there or was it just a lot of smoke we could see.
great to see how much more competitive the car is becoming with every extra bit of work you guys are doing.
must be making quite a few of the other teams sit up and take some real notice of the ol Bellett on the track


thanks again for all the picture posts. there are some really great shots in there.


OZ

[Pombellett]

Yes, sorry Oz, I didn't make that clear...it was the gearbox filler plug that dropped out. So at the moment I'm having the bearings replaced, and at the same time having all the gears checked. need to get on because we've got Brands Hatch on the 6th of July.

Meanwhile I've got a few more pictures that Dick took (Thanks Dick)....this is a good one of the car emerging from our garage onto the pitlane...this is the original pitlane at Spa on Eau Rouge, for the big boys and the F1 lot they use a new set of garages and pitlane on a different part of the circuit.

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He also took these two of the car on Eau Rouge looking across to our garages.

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